


The Keepers' Verse

by keeperofhope (Lokislittlearmy)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Magic, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21874435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokislittlearmy/pseuds/keeperofhope
Summary: Twelve years after the Keeper of Connection is killed, a war rages on to find the rest. Taja Dubois, bound by her oath to serve, finds herself captured by the very guard hunting down her own Keeper.Sapphire Nilsen and Adrien Moreau believe they're on the right path to put the restore the balance of the world. What they don't know is how their minds are about to change.





	The Keepers' Verse

**Author's Note:**

> This work isn't finished, but I'm really excited to post it. I've been working on it for ages and this is the iteration I've felt most comfortable with so far. So, pay attention to the tags and if/when they change, and let's get started!

Adrien’s fingers fly across the fretboard. It’s easy, playing this song. He can’t believe how much he missed it, but they’ve finally settled down for a night. They don’t have to run and chase anymore. For a few days, it’ll be just getting the servant back to the kingdom.

Thank god. He feels like he could pass out. It’s all muscle memory that’s guiding him through the motions. He murmurs the lyrics under his breath. It’s like a lullaby, even if not many others would agree.

He misses his old little mp3 player. It was from the dollar value store and barely held a gigabyte of music, but it was his, and it had this song. He doesn’t even remember what an electric guitar sounds like at this point. It’s been so long since he was home, around his amplifier and his full-size guitar. There was a violin in this song, too...right? He thinks so.

The captive is staring at him. Her eyes are burning a hole in him, and he can’t decide whether or not to look back at her.

Aside from how they found her, she’s been silent. Despite their pokes and prods and ceaseless questioning, she kept her lips sealed. So they’ll deal with her when they actually get back to Lyon. That’s fine. Five days’ journey, and maybe he can have a day to swap out his possessions while the commander deals with...whoever this is.

He should understand. He’s fighting her people, after all. Knowing exactly who she is might be pretty helpful. All he can think of is a monk, but it’s not the same thing.

The thought occurs that he could just ask her. He apparently has her attention right now anyway. Even if she wouldn’t answer, maybe it would get her to realize she’s staring at someone. It’s got to be a culture thing, but the commander is at least subtle when she’s watching.

And he knows that in a way, this girl is just playing all of them. Nobody screams like that to get the enemy’s attention unless they want to be captured. And since she doesn’t have any weapons, Adrien has to wonder why.

Maybe it has to do with how the commander hesitated at the edge of the trail. It took her a second to order them to get her. She could have been worried it was a trap, but there was something else. He’s dying to ask her the moment they get any privacy.

This is the point where the music is supposed to swell, a chorus of voices joining in desperation. He always thought this song was a call to action of sorts. Create your own reality and all that junk. Now, he realizes it’s just a song of hopelessness and resignation.

He lets the guitar drop off and does a few final vocalizations. Wind whistles through the trees like they’re backing up his vocals. It knocks a few leaves off of the branches, but there’s not much left to knock away.

One still manages to sweep right into the captive’s face. She breaks out of whatever trance she’d gotten herself into so she can brush it away. The leaf tangles in her hair, and she makes a little noise of discontent as she unravels it. Does she not own a hair tie? He swears he sees her comb her fingers through her hair every other time he looks over.

She gives the leaf back to the breeze. It gets caught on one of their tents seconds later, but he’s sure that dead leaf really appreciated the extra air time.

The girl pulls her knees to her chest and tucks her face into her legs. A little ways away, the rest of the squadron is playing in the clearing they found. He doesn’t remember who the ball belongs to at this point. They’ve been taking turns carrying it on the side of their horses.

Adrien puts his guitar just inside his tent. He looks over to the girl. “Come on. I want to watch them play.”

It takes her a second to process. She slowly rises to her feet. The cloak hides her arms, but they’re clearly folded. She doesn’t look over at him. She follows him to the edge of the field and plops back down under another tree. She pulls her knees back in. Her cloak drapes over her legs easily, boots poking out. She tucks most of her face into the cloak but watches the game.

The commander is acting as referee, leaving the others split into teams of five. She runs along with the ball and blows her whistle intermittently. Her hands fly as she signs whatever the soldier did wrong. Adrien can’t quite see from here. It’s a smaller field than regulation. The sun is setting, casting long shadows across the dying grass.

It’s a little windier out here. Less trees to block. The captive has the right idea, tucking into her wool cloak like that. His coat is still in his tent...Nah, not worth it. He’s moved her around enough for right now.

Her eyes are fixed on the commander. They always are. She’s always watching her, less like a hawk or a predator and more like the mouse. The prey wary of its next assailant. She’s figuring out the commander, tracking every movement and figuring out exactly what those movements mean.

The commander looks over as the soldiers readjust themselves. She waves, a little smile on her face. Adrien waves back. A gust of wind blows through. Maybe he’ll get his coat, after all. He raises his hands to sign. “Watch the captive. I’m getting my coat.” A beat of silence. “Please.”

“Be quick.”

The girl looks at him as he rises. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” She doesn’t respond, just looks back to the field.

He’s not as quick as he wants to be. His coat is in the bottom of his bag, and he has to repack because if Sapp—the commander—comes back to their tent and sees that his clothes aren’t in the bag, she won’t be happy. He shrugs his coat on and retreats back out.

The shadows seem deeper. There’s a golden glow on everything the sun touches, and Adrien almost wishes he had a camera.

While the soldiers are still playing, the commander relaxes next to the captive. Her shoulders are dropped as she looks out over the field. She tilts her head in idle conversation.

He doesn’t want to interfere. Quietly as he can, he sneaks behind a tree to...not eavesdrop. Just overhear. Listen in.  
The commander looks over and smiles. “I think you’d make a fine referee, actually.”

The captive makes a little sound that sounds like a laugh, but it’s too quiet. Too bitter. “That sounds awful, too. I’d end up with half your squadron having my back and the other half with a knife at my neck.”

“Ah, these games are all in good fun.”

“My being here isn’t. I know you and all of the soldiers are taking this opportunity to relax a little, but we both know that the only thing keeping any one of them from slitting my throat is regulation.”

There’s no response for a few moments. The commander shifts her weight. “There’s a lot of prejudice. It’s taken me a lot of time, a lot of work, to get the respect that I do.”

“And leaving your family.” The captive picks at grass. “Don’t think I didn’t recognize you, Sapphire. Nilsen’s not a very common last name.”

“Our reputations precede us both, then.” The commander sighs. “I’m sorry that I don’t know your name. Have we actually met?”

The captive moves and leans against the tree more fully. “We were children. I wouldn’t expect you to remember.” The sun is moving out of its golden hour, slowly but surely, and the game is winding down. The shadows of the two women touch Adrien’s toes. The captive stretches her legs out from under her woolen cloak but keeps her arms folded firmly under it. “My name is Taja.”

“Taja,” Sapphire echoes as if she’s rolling the sound on her tongue and testing it out. She moves her hand in a gentle circle, palm up. “This is the sign for what you are. A servant. So if you see us using it, you’ll know we’re talking about you.”

Taja crosses her wrists with closed fists. “You wouldn’t use the sign for prisoner?”

It takes a moment for Sapphire to respond. She huffs a surprised laugh and drops her hands. “You could’ve said that you know what we’re saying.”

“If you don’t want to lay your cards on the table, I see no reason to do the same.” Taja looks out at the field. The soldiers are starting to come back, shoving each other and laughing uproariously. Taja curls further in on herself. She looks rather like she’d disappear if Adrien looked away.

Sapphire stands as the soldiers draw near. “Alright, everyone, get ready for bed. I want to be up and ready by the time the sun is over the trees tomorrow.” She looks down at Taja. “That includes you. You can sleep in the tent with Adrien and me.”

It doesn’t take long for Taja to wind down. She doesn’t say another word, even as she tucks herself in in the sleeping bag farthest from the tent opening.

Adrien stares up at the vinyl lining for what feels like forever. Long enough that he can see the moon cresting over the trees and above his head and realize he’s going to be dragging his feet tomorrow morning. What he wouldn’t give for the comfort of coffee. He just needs to be able to think, is all.

They know each other. In some capacity, they’ve interacted before. The captive knows the commander well enough to talk to her. It’s bitter and stilted, like one wrong word and everything will explode, but at least they’re actually holding a conversation. It’s more than anybody else in the camp can say. His mind is racing with ways they can use this to their advantage.

On the other hand, they’re at even ground now. She knows exactly what they’ve been saying about her. He should inform the rest of the squadron, so they don’t give away something important.

Not that she can contact her Keeper anyway, his mind supplies.

Still… He closes his eyes. He’ll deal with it in the morning.

The morning, however, comes faster than he’d like. Taja is somehow the first to wake. She sits in her sleeping bag staring down at a handheld gaming console. Even though both of them still appear to be asleep, she’s not making the slightest attempt to escape.

It sounds like some adventure game, from the quiet yells every few seconds. She’s staring pretty intensely. Boss battle, maybe? He watches her play for a few minutes. It’s still just barely dawn. If Sapphire hasn’t woken up, he doesn’t have to be awake either.

Taja huffs at her screen, brow furrowing as she presses the buttons with more force. Sapphire rolls over in her sleeping bag. She tucks her face into the covers to rub her eyes, usually the first sign of her waking up.

If he didn’t know better, Adrien would think that Taja speeds up her gameplay after that.

It’s a few more minutes before Taja closes the console and stores it away. She looks over at Adrien and speaks in a soft voice. “I’d really like to gather my own breakfast.”

Ah, so she knew he was awake. And considering she hasn’t talked to him before now, she probably knows he was listening. She really doesn’t show her hand if she doesn’t have to, does she? He blinks at her. “We have extra supplies. Nobody in their right mind would hand you your bow and arrow.”

She doesn’t seem exactly surprised, but she scowls anyway and looks away. “I don’t know where your supplies have been.”

“But you know where the animals have been?”

“I know the fire beneath them,” she shoots back. “Besides, I wasn’t even going to hunt for now. I saw a few bushes with berries in the field last night. I’d gather enough for everyone.”

The thought is strangely winsome. He looks over at Sapphire, who’s definitely awake to hear this by now. Her eyebrow twitches, but she doesn’t say anything. He looks back to Taja. “I’ll go with you so I can make sure you’re not picking anything poisonous.”

Taja rolls her eyes. “Please, I know how to identify berries.” Like the thought doesn’t occur that that’s what he’s worried about. She pushes out of her sleeping bag anyway.

The sun is still far behind the trees, but the forest stirs to life regardless. There’s an early morning rustle from the squirrels in the branches above. A couple leaves shake from their stems and fall before the two as they walk.

Adrien unhooks a basket from his horse’s saddle and puts the few supplies in it to the side. Charlie huffs as he passes, receiving a little pat. It’s apple season now. Maybe Adrien will find at least one tree on his way back.

Bushes line the field as promised. Taja holds her hands out for the basket. She examines each bush before picking from it, and Adrien knows none of them will make anybody sick. Her hands poke out from the cloak.

He wonders just how warm it is. It would be far more efficient if it had sleeves, right? But she hasn’t complained about it yet, and she didn’t have any other outerwear in her bag. Maybe her Keeper has her winter coat. The Keepers’ robes are warm, at far as he knows.

She must catch him staring, since she turns away and strides to the next bush. “I’m not leaving without my supplies, you know.”

“I didn’t think you were going to,” he replies easily. He watches her pick from this bush. Her hands are starting to stain a dark red with the juice. He wonders if there’s a river nearby to wash out the basket. “I just wondered how warm your cloak is.”

“Warm enough to wear year-round.” She’s got about a fourth of the hip-basket, enough to make a side for every soldier. She keeps going. Maybe for herself, maybe because it’s something to do while she waits.

“Even in the winter?”

He doesn’t get a full response, just a nod. Taja picks a couple more branches clean, enough to fill almost half the basket now. A bird pops out of the bush and stares at her like there’s not a hundred other bushes to pick from within gliding distance. Taja pulls a couple berries out anyway and offers them to the yellow bird.

For a second, Adrien thinks she’s insane. Birds don’t just accept things from humans. They rarely even let them get so close. Then the bird ducks down and pecks at the blackberries until they’re gone and the juice covers Taja’s palm.

The bird flutters away. Taja stands up straight and looks around. “It’d be nice if there were some apple trees for the horses,” she mutters as if she didn’t just do something straight out of an old fairy tale movie.

She narrows her eyes at the other end of the field and starts walking toward it. “I think those might be apples?”

Adrien walks with her. He’s wary, of course, but he sees a few apple trees on the other side of some blackberry bushes. Taja stops at the edge and sighs. She can’t go through thorny bushes. She’s already got a couple scrapes on her hands.

Oh, but he wants those apples too. He can’t just leave her here, even if his pants can withstand the thorns. He slides closer and pulls the basket away, earning a noise of protest. “Trust me for a second,” he fires off.

She definitely doesn’t, especially when he gets close enough to pick her up. She squeaks—which shouldn’t be nearly as sweet as it is—and clings to his neck. He expected her to weigh a lot more, but her muscle is apparently all lean. Her cloak gathers around her neck, and it’s the first time he’s seen what’s under it.

Just a dark cotton tank top. The simplicity should really be expected, considering the leggings he could already see. Apparently the cloak is the only special part of her uniform.

He can hear footsteps behind them. He still takes his time getting to the other side and setting her down before looking back.

Sapphire picks up the basket of berries and looks at them with raised eyebrows. “There are plenty of berries in the field,” she says from the other side of the bushes.

“There are apple trees,” Adrien says with a gesture to the branches. As if on cue, an apple falls to the forest floor.

After a moment of looking between them, Sapphire smiles a little. She hands them the basket over the bushes. “Hurry back. I’m just putting all your stuff outside of the tent so I can pack up. It looks like it’s going to rain later today, so I want to get as much movement in before that happens.”

Taja takes the basket from Adrien. “You should cook something before it rains. The deer over-bred this year.” She starts picking apples from the ground and storing them alongside the berries.

Sapphire smiles a little, despite herself. “Perhaps. We don’t run into many deer. They’re afraid of humans, especially when we’re in such a large squadron.”

“Divide and conquer, then.” She makes it sound like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. It probably is, to her. She probably only had to travel with herself and her Keeper before.

“That’s not what that means,” Adrien cuts in. He watches her mull around the couple of trees. “It’s actually meant to divide the enemy up so that they’re easier to conquer.”

Taja stands up. The basket is completely full now. “Yes, and deer travel in herds.” She holds the basket back out to Sapphire.

Sapphire takes it and steps back. Adrien picks Taja up. She’s a little more relaxed this time despite the death grip around his neck. Once they’re on the other side, Adrien picks a couple loose thorns out of his pants.

He starts walking with the other two. “We should say that it was either mine or Sapphire’s idea. The others won’t eat those if they think it was gathered by a servant.”

“It was gathered by a servant,” Taja replies. She holds the basket out to Adrien anyway, who takes it. “With supervision.”

The rest of them are milling about and packing when they return. Taja counts nine of them, plus Sapphire and Adrien. A couple of them send her glares, but most of them just glance their way or ignore her altogether.

Taja slings her bag over her shoulder and retreats to watch the soldiers work. She’s already got a decent understanding of most of them, she thinks.

There’s Valerie, Lucien, Clement, Delphine, Antoine, Felix, Jean, Fleur, and Theo. Of those, there are three that are vehemently hateful. Valerie, Clement, and Antoine. The rest of them just avoid speaking to her. Valerie seems to chat with Adrien the most, but he rarely reciprocates.

Theo pulls a throwing knife from their holster, waits a second, and tosses it into the branches. They catch a squirrel by the tail. “Breakfast, anyone?” they joke as they pull the knife out.

Impressive skill, not that Taja can entirely agree with the intent. It looks like the soldiers agree, considering the collective groan. Sapphire tosses the three sleeping bags from their tent in a pile near the horses. “There are freshly picked berries and apples for everyone too.”

There’s still people packing up, but the horses have been given some grass to munch on. Theo starts up a fire, apparently set on not eating one of the RCIRs. Taja tries not to watch. She picks up enough apples for the horses and moves through the camp.

She’s well aware of the eyes on her. She ignores them, like she knows she will for the next few days anyway. She starts down the line of horses, letting out a little chuckle at their excitement.

“Don’t feed Sinclair,” Valerie cuts in. She’s halfway through putting her hair up, bent over and glaring at Taja in the corner of her eye. “If I wanted to give him a treat, I’d do it myself.” She flips over and twists her hair around itself. Her eyes dart down to Taja’s stained hands. “And someone else can have my share of berries. I’m not trusting anything the servant touched.”

Taja’s eyes roam over the harnesses on each horse. Sinclair is the fourth horse down in the line. It seems unfair to leave him out, but she’s already fed the first three horses. As she tosses what she should do around in her mind, another voice cuts in.

“God, Val, let your horse eat. He needs it from carrying all your equipment around.” Lucien rolls his eyes as he straps his sleeping bag in. “The kid was with the Commander and Moreau, I’m sure whatever she picked is fine.”

While Valerie grumbles, Taja feeds the last two horses. She tosses the last apple to Valerie, who catches it with one hand. “Wash it if you want.”

She ignores Valerie’s stare of disgust and starts strapping the sleeping bags to Sapphire’s horse. Versailles. The horse stands a little taller than the rest, a dark russet shade with a silky mane. She’s clearly a little older than the others, too. She’s restless, that much is clear with her pawing the ground.

It’s also clear that the squadron has no clue what to do with Taja. She’s not trying to escape, but they have no guarantee that she won’t. When they set out, Adrien props Taja up on Versailles’ saddle and cuffs her to one of the straps. The horse, while restless, is well-trained. She wouldn’t respond to anybody but Sapphire.

Still, Sapphire holds the reins as they walk. Taja ends up leaning against Versailles’ neck and stroking through the russet hair.

They rest for lunch beside a rushing river. Theo tosses a plucked and cooked bird her way. It’s better than the RCIRs, Taja concedes, and thanks them. She washes her hands in the river and feels the sting in the scrapes from that morning. The berry juice has been on her hands long enough to stain for a while.

It looks like she’s been up to some unsavory activities. “What’s done can not be undone,” she mutters with a sarcastic smile. “To bed, to bed, to bed.” The stain on her skin won’t come out.

She uses the water to wash her face. It’s freezing, but it’s exactly what she needed. She combs damp fingers across her scalp. She wishes she had her soap, but they wouldn’t let her bring her bag down here. Adrien watches from a little cliff not far away.

She debates for a few seconds before looking over at him. “Can I have my soap from my bag?”

Adrien looks over his shoulder and beckons one of the soldiers over. Fleur, Taja thinks is her name, brings the bag. Adrien digs a bit and throws a travel-size bottle to Taja.

Taja fumbles in catching it but manages to do so. She lathers up her scalp, and it’s the best feeling she’s had in days. She sighs with the relief of her own fingers in her hair. She holds her hair away and sticks her head underwater.

It definitely looks like she’s drowning herself. When she comes up for air, Adrien is off the cliff and halfway to her with a hand outstretched. She doesn’t even say anything, just goes back under. She feels his hand around her hair. If he pulls, she’s going to rip his arm off its socket. But no pull comes. She rises for a quick breath before using both hands to rinse the rest of the soap out.

He releases her hair as soon as she pulls up. Her bangs are dripping, but the lengths of her hair are still dry. In a few weeks, she’ll have to start wearing a hat after she washes her hair.

The thought all but gut-punches her that maybe, just maybe, she won’t be worrying about that at all. Maybe she’ll be rotting in a cell, or someone will be interrogating her for information on her Keeper’s whereabouts. It doesn’t matter that their laws forbid physical assault, they’re desperate. And all she has to go on is the desperate hope that her Keeper will be there to save her before she gets to Lyon.

Adrien breaks her out of her reverie by extending a small towel to her. She hadn’t even noticed him leave to get it. “We’re following the river for a while. Everyone else is going to wash up tonight, a little before dusk.”

Taja nods and takes the towel. “Am I going to be chained to a tree or something?”

“Well, you’re welcome to wash with us if you don’t want to be chained up.”

No way. She’d rather actually drown herself, for several reasons. “I’d prefer to bathe on my own, believe it or not.” She ties two corners of the towel so that all her hair is pulled back.

Adrien starts leading her back to the others. “You’re still a captive, believe it or not.”

“I’m not stripping down in front of all of the soldiers.” As if to prove her point, she tugs her cloak closer to herself.

“It would just be the women. We separate by that much.”

“Still a no from me.”

Adrien gives her a dubious look. He’d clearly seen the relief on her face when she was washing her scalp. “Suit yourself, I guess.”

He guides her back, as the others start to pack up. The only reason he can think of that she wouldn’t want to get clean is if she’s insecure. It’s not like anybody else would have weapons to hurt her. Maybe she has scars she’s hiding, like the rest of them.

She refuses to look him in the eye now, flushing bright red. It almost feels like they’re back at square one, when she wouldn’t talk to anybody. She’s got the same hunched shoulders, same small steps. The only difference is that her hair isn’t shrouding her face.

They continue on. Taja murmurs to Versailles every few minutes. Adrien can just barely hear that it’s musings about harmless things. The weather, how fast the leaves are falling, how it looks like it’s going to rain.

The soldiers start picking up songs. Top 40 stuff from when radios were still a thing, bellowed jokingly. Adrien slings his guitar over his shoulder and starts strumming along. He realizes that he really only needs four chords for most of the songs.

Silence settles in, and Adrien starts picking. He ends up picking the same song from yesterday. He feels Taja’s eyes on him again as he starts in, but this time he does look over. She’s watching his hands, not Adrien himself.

This time, the whole squadron sings along.

They settle for dinner just downstream from a waterfall. A few of the soldiers look at the pool beneath the waterfall and decide the only way to separate by gender is going in shifts.

Adrien takes Sapphire aside before he heads down, leaving Taja in the hopefully-capable hands of Delphine. “She doesn’t want to bathe in front of others.”

“I’ll scope out behind the waterfall then.” Sapphire shrugs. “I’m sure we can sort something out. Did she say why?”

“No. I didn’t press, since she was already starting to shut down.”

Sapphire nods and spares a glance Taja’s way. “I’ll see if I can figure out why. We’ll likely need to stop again before we get to the kingdom.”

Adrien takes in the silence that hangs after that sentence. Of course they will. It’s close to a four day journey ahead of them. “If you bring her into the city and she’s not looking well-”

“I know,” Sapphire says. There’s an edge in her statement he only hears her use when Valerie is getting too close for comfort or too harsh to her teammates. Do not question me, it says. Still, there’s an underlying anxiety there. “We’re treating her as well as we can.”

It starts to rain just as the women are coming back. Adrien offers Sapphire a questioning glance, but she just shrugs. Taja is in a spare change of clothes. He can see an old, worn military jacket slung over her arm and poking out from under the cloak.

So Sapphire gave her her old jacket. It’s an outdated style. Otherwise, she would have worn that jacket until it was threadbare. It almost was—the elbows have little tears in them and the sleeves are frayed. Her name patch was falling off.

He’s still got his old jacket, too. He might put it on soon—it’s certainly warmer than the newer designs. Chill settles in as he climbs into the tent and spreads out his sleeping bag. Taja scrambles to the back of the tent. She sets the jacket beside her sleeping bag like she’s almost afraid she’ll hurt it.

Sapphire zips up the tent with a sigh. “Tomorrow will be fun.” She sits atop her sleeping bag and digs into her bag for dinner.

“Maybe it’ll clear up overnight,” Adrien replies as he does the same.

Sapphire slides an RCIR to Taja. “I doubt it. We should head for the main trail soon, though. I don’t want to get stuck trudging through muddy leaves.”

Taja reluctantly opens the package and looks through it. Sapphire and Adrien start trading the last parts of theirs, paying Taja little mind. After a minute, Sapphire huffs. “I forgot the little platform we use for the heater.”

Adrien looks at her, all comfy in her pajamas and no shoes. “Are you going to go get it?”

It takes her another moment to decide. She makes a little noise of discontent and grabs her old jacket from beside Taja. “Yes, apparently.”

It’s pouring outside, but Adrien only holds the flap shut so that Sapphire doesn’t have to spend time unzipping it. He looks over to Taja. “Don’t servants have magic powers or something?”

Taja raises an eyebrow at him. She pulls out an entree and examines the ingredients. “No. We’re just servants.”

When she doesn’t offer anything else, Adrien finds himself curious. He’d always been raised to think this stuff was true, after all. “Do Keepers have powers, then?”

“Yes, through their items.” The items they all carry, the ultimate thing that they need to capture. The person doesn’t even really matter. As long as the guard has the item away from them, the next Keeper can’t be found and their duties can’t go on.

Taja seems completely unperturbed as she starts looking through the breakfast package. “It’s specific to each Keeper. I know mine can spark fires, but she can’t very well control them.” She pulls out the milk powder. “Do you just mix this with water?”

Adrien nods. “It’s not fantastic, but it tastes alright in coffee.” He watches her nose scrunch up and holds back a laugh. “Not a fan of coffee?”

Taja shakes her head. She sets the powder packet aside. “It’s awful. And adding sugar just makes it too much.”

“Well, if you don’t want that, I’ll take it. I can trade my teabag for it.” He moves his hand away for Sapphire to scramble in.

She’s breathing heavily as she sets the little metal box on the tent floor. It’s also wet, but she takes her towel to it. It doesn’t do much, but it’s enough that it’s not soaking into the vinyl. “You’re doing that next time.” She zips the flap shut.

“I’ll be sure not to forget it next time,” he teases in return. He pulls his last entree out with the heater. He has to help Taja figure out how to use hers, after she settles on her soup packet.

It’s a steady silence for a while. It’s strange how easily they’ve adjusted to Taja’s presence. She doesn’t make it difficult. The tent is a little more cramped, but not overtly so. She tucks herself away, doesn’t try to sneak by and escape, and Adrien gets the feeling she’d only act up if they were cruel to her.

Considering what he’s heard about Val’s remarks, he’s not even sure about that.

It’s a far claim from what his training said. They said that servants would obey nobody but their Keepers, defending them to the very end by any means necessary. He has to wonder if her complacency is related to how they found her.

That sure is an image that’s going to haunt him for a while. The gut-wrenching screams from far away and their immediate ride. Sapphire pulling ahead and still urging Versailles to go faster. And then, when they found her.

Her screams died almost immediately as she sobbed into the forest floor. Her bag laid a few feet away, like she had thrown it but was too weak to lift. Sapphire ordered some of them to spread out in search of the Keeper. Taja hadn’t even raised a finger to get away from them, and she didn’t as Antoine snapped her into handcuffs.

“That’s not necessary,” Felix had quietly protested.

It really wasn’t. She wasn’t escaping then, and she isn’t escaping now. She picks at her dessert, and still looks dejected, but she doesn’t act like any risk.

That’s the ones he should pay most attention to, or so he’s heard. They’re the ones who lay in wait until the time is right. They’re less like prey cowering from a predator, more like a feline lying in wait.

Taja doesn’t particularly seem like a predator. He has to remind himself to look at her through that lens. And then everything comes into a different focus. Watching their every move not like the mouse or the hawk, but like the cat around the corner.

He doesn’t feel particularly like sleeping. He lies awake and listens to the rain pour until it blurs into white noise. He practices his signs to the clouds. He wishes he still had his mp3 player. He wishes he could sleep.

Thunder picks up in the far distance. One of the horses whinnies from under their tarp enclosure. Adrien sighs and closes his eyes, finally drifting off to a peaceful sleep.

A few minutes later, Taja jolts awake. She doesn’t sit up, but her eyes shoot open as she curls in like she’s about to be hit.

Sapphire wakes with the movement. The feeling of the sleeping bag being pulled under her head, whether intentional or not, is one she’s grown quite used to. She cracks an eye open and looks up at Taja. She puts one hearing aid in and clicks it on. “Are you alright?”

Taja gives her a look that Sapphire can’t quite distinguish in the dark. She rolls over and pulls her cloak tighter to herself. Their heads are closest to each other, though, so it’s no surprise that she can hear Taja’s uneven breathing. She can hear the muffled sniffles, too.

It really was a nightmare, then. A terrible one, by the sounds of it. Sapphire knows that if the Keeper of Hope is the one she met as a child, Taja’s used to being held close. Her Keeper just seemed like that kind of person, to comfort and murmur softly.

Sapphire reaches out and touches Taja’s shoulder with the gentlest touch she can. In return, Taja recoils like Sapphire slapped her. Sapphire takes her hand away. “You can talk about it if you want.”

For a moment, it looks like Taja isn’t going to say anything. Her sobs die down. She rolls back over, but her cloak is pulled tight around her. Of course it’s more than a symbol of loyalty, it’s her comfort item at this point. It’s the one possession they can’t legally take away from her.

Taja wipes her eyes. “It was about my brother. We were being executed together.”

Oh. Well...Sapphire has absolutely no idea how to respond to that. “You won’t be executed.” It’s supposed to be comforting. It’s definitely not, judging by how Taja winces.

“I have too much information to be executed. After that, if they don’t execute me, they’ll hold me forever or use me as bait.”

If Sapphire didn’t know better, she would think Taja has no faith in her Keeper. “They wouldn’t use a servant who was abandoned. They know it’s no use.”

Taja’s silence says everything she needs to know. She looks away, brow furrowed like the idea confuses her. It’s obvious when a servant is abandoned. It brands on their skin, causing physical pain enough to almost cancel the pain of rejection. It’s one of the parts that made Sapphire turn away.

At first, Sapphire thought Taja’s screams were that of an abandoned servant. She’s figured out now that Taja wasn’t abandoned at all.

Her Keeper will return for her, as soon as she can. It’s not escape they should be watching for, but invasion. They have to be ready to protect the servant while fighting the Keeper, and keep them apart at all costs.

They both fall asleep soon after. Adrien is, once again, the second to wake up. It’s drizzling still, but the sky is bright above them. It’s sure to stop soon.

He finds that Taja drags her feet. He can’t help but view it from that different lens, watching her more intently as Sapphire helps her onto Versailles’ saddle.

Taja falls asleep, tucked tight against the horse’s neck. It’s not the behavior of a predator. It’s like the prey that’s given in.

He looks at Sapphire, who’s watching Taja with a loose grip on the reins and coffee in her other hand. She keeps looking back at Taja out of habit, even though she knows well that Taja’s not going anywhere right now.

Sapphire, he realizes, is counted as prey according to his training. Some would say that she’s lying in wait for her moment to strike. Some do.

He runs through what he knows about her. They’ve been friends since before the first Keeper was killed. It shouldn’t be so hard. He knows she was born and raised in a safe haven for Keepers and servants and anybody else who worships the Keepers. She was trained to be a servant when she was young, but he remembers her doubts.

She always hated the idea of being subservient and trusting somebody so blindly, enough so that she could put her life on the line for them or find a replacement when they died. She hated that she would never know which one until the time came. Besides, there was no guarantee she would ever be chosen.

That was why she decided to leave, if he remembers correctly. She knew she had a future here that she wasn’t sure of otherwise. “I know what I want to do,” she said over a crackling phone line. “I want to have an actual purpose, and I finally know what that is.”

She was welcome in Adrien’s shoddy studio apartment until they were both old enough to enlist. They delighted when they were put in the same squadron, and Adrien gave her a recommendation of the highest caliber when the last commander left.

It would be easy to talk himself out of the idea of Sapphire being an enemy. Well, he thinks it would be. There’s something there, though, that Adrien can’t shake away. There’s a tenderness behind her eyes when she glances at the sleeping servant. There’s this little bit of hesitance he keeps thinking back to when they captured Taja, where she looked at Taja and for a second and a half froze in her tracks and rebooted.

That little piece of him has him thinking back and repeating to himself that maybe, Sapphire is more than how she appears. He doesn’t want to think of it. It would mean too much. Still, the thought clings to the edges of his mind as they tie the horses up for lunch.

Perhaps Sapphire is not the obvious predator, but the cat around the corner.

**Author's Note:**

> I have some stuff at kaijublu.carrd.co
> 
> Comments are super duper appreciated! <3


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